Source: FOOTYMAD
Never Say Die Attitude Rewards Motherwell
I doubt if anybody took the bookies with a prediction of last night's result at Fir Park Once again, Hibs failed to secure a game that they looked like they had won. 6-2 up with less than half an hour to go and they allowed Motherwell to fight their way back into the game and snatch a draw . Motherwell manager Craig Brown admitted he had never seen a game like it in his life after his team came back to secure a valuable point. The former Scotland boss was proud of his players' character after they refused to be beaten, even after Ross Forbes missed a late penalty with Well still behind. Lukas Jutkiewicz scored a stunning injury-time volley to keep Motherwell in pole position in the race for Europe. The game was the highest scoring in Scottish Premier League history, just beating another Fir Park clash, which came in 1999 with Well on the losing side that time around. Brown said: "They tell me there was a game here before between Motherwell and Aberdeen that finished 6-5 and the goalkeepers were Jim Leighton and Andy Goram. So it's not uncommon here. But I can't recall anything like it. When I was coach of the Under-21s we were 4-1 down against Germany and won 5-4 in a quarter-final but I can't recall a game quite like this one." Well trailed 6-2 with 23 minutes left after Anthony Stokes struck a quickfire double to add to Colin Nish's first-half hat-trick and Derek Riordan's goal. But Giles Coke and John Sutton both netted their second goals and Tom Hateley's free-kick helped set up an unforgettable finale. Brown said: "At 6-2 I thought it was gone but I had said to the players at half-time, the most worrying thing in sport is a losing lead. It was only 4-2 at the time but it's a psychological thing. Another five minutes and I think we'd have won. I think they were out on their feet. I did say after Hibs lost to Hearts at the weekend they tend to lose goals late. Jutkiewicz's goal was like van Basten's. At four goals down you have got to commend the character of the team and we have got to be proud of them." Hibs boss John Hughes spoke about his team's character in the dressing room after the game. He said: "You need to dig deep and train like world champions. If we had trained like that we would have seen that game out. To be 6-2 up with 25 minutes to go, I think it's self-explanatory. But I felt at 6-2 my strikers stopped working and it brought them on top of us. And add that on to one or two individual mistakes." Perhaps it was the boiler suits he had issued after the defeat against Hearts that hampered his side's defensive qualities! Editor Ger Harley (ger@scottishfitba.net)Admin Team (admin@scottishfitba.net)This is Scottish-Fitba.Net
